‘Alternative facts’ and the airbrushing of women from early mission history: the case of Susanna Klein

Abstract

ABSTRACT Despite several decades of feminist scholarship, the early period of overseas evangelism has remained largely untouched, allowing the myth of the mission as an all male affair to go unchallenged. The paper takes the life story of one particular missionary wife who served on the Church Missionary Society’s first African mission to illustrate the role played by historians’ uncritical use of archival material in perpetuating the male narrative. It focuses on Susanna Klein’s dramatic decision in 1815 to turn whistleblower by exposing numerous missionary misdemeanours, which prompted an inspection visit from London. It traces the mechanism whereby the Society, deeply unsettled by her role in the affair, airbrushed all mention of her from its public records, thus revealing the ease with which female agency could be suppressed to preserve the all male story. In conclusion, a number of lessons are drawn from the unquestioning reliance on the work of others.